What Intended Parents Should Have Ready Before Their First Consultation With a Surrogacy Lawyer
By Olga Pysana – Co-founder Family By Choice, Independent International Surrogacy Consultant (The Surrogacy Insider)
For many intended parents, the first consultation with a surrogacy lawyer is the moment the journey becomes real. After months, sometimes years, of fertility treatment, research, and conversations with their partner, they finally sit down with a legal professional to understand what lies ahead.
That first meeting can be enormously productive. It can also leave intended parents feeling overwhelmed, underprepared, and more uncertain than when they walked in.
The difference, in almost every case, comes down to preparation. As someone who has spent years supporting intended parents at every stage of the surrogacy process, I have seen this pattern repeat itself consistently. Those who arrive at their first legal consultation with a clear foundation of knowledge get far more value from it. Those who arrive without that foundation often spend the session catching up on basics, and leave with more questions than answers.
This article is for the latter group, and for anyone who wants to make sure they are not in it.
Why preparation matters before you meet a surrogacy lawyer
A surrogacy lawyer’s role is to advise you on the legal dimensions of your journey: the requirements in your state or territory, the surrogacy agreement, the parentage order process, and, if you are considering going overseas, the legal framework of your chosen destination and how it interacts with Australian law.
What a lawyer cannot do in a single consultation is fill the gaps in your foundational understanding of how surrogacy actually works. That is not their job, and it is not the best use of the time you have with them.
Surrogacy in Australia is a complex, state-by-state landscape. The eligibility requirements, what expenses are permissible, and the counselling obligations differ depending on where you live. If you arrive at your first meeting without a working understanding of how surrogacy is structured, domestically and internationally, you will spend a significant portion of your consultation establishing context that you could have built beforehand.
Arriving prepared means arriving with better questions. And better questions lead to better advice.
What to have ready before your first consultation
The following is not an exhaustive checklist. It is a practical guide to the areas where intended parents most commonly arrive underprepared, and where a modest investment of time beforehand makes the most meaningful difference.
A basic understanding of how surrogacy works in Australia
Before your consultation, you should understand, at least at a foundational level, that surrogacy in Australia is altruistic, meaning surrogates cannot be paid beyond their reasonable expenses. You should know that surrogacy law is state and territory based, and that the rules differ depending on where you and your surrogate live. You should understand that under State law the surrogate is the legal parent of the child at birth, and that a parentage order is required to transfer legal parenthood to the intended parents after the birth.
These are not legal details that require a lawyer to explain from scratch. They are the framework within which your legal advice will be given. Understanding them in advance means you can engage with the specifics of your own situation from the first moment of your consultation.
A clear sense of whether you are pursuing domestic or international surrogacy, or both
This is one of the first questions a surrogacy lawyer will ask, and your answer shapes the entire consultation. Domestic and international surrogacy involve fundamentally different legal frameworks, timelines, costs, and risks.
If you are considering international surrogacy, you should arrive with at least a general awareness of the destination countries you are considering and the legal landscape in each. Australia has specific legal requirements around the recognition of overseas parentage orders and the citizenship and passport process for children born abroad. Understanding that these requirements exist, even before you understand the details, means your lawyer can spend time advising you on your specific circumstances rather than explaining the landscape from the beginning.Most Australian surrogacy lawyers do not give advice about international advice. It is good to clarify with the law firm when making the appointment.
In broad terms, for every child born through surrogacy in Australia, four are born overseas.
A summary of your medical situation and fertility history
Your surrogacy lawyer is not a fertility specialist, but your medical situation is directly relevant to your legal journey. If you have undergone IVF, know whether you have viable embryos in storage. If egg donation is part of your plan, be clear on whether you have a donor in mind or will be seeking one. If you are a same-sex male couple, understand the egg donation process well enough to describe your current position.
If you are considering creating embryos with donor eggs, it can be wise to hold off doing so until that first appointment with the lawyer- as the creation of embryos can impact how the surrogacy journey is undertaken.
This information helps your lawyer understand where you are in the process and tailor their advice accordingly. It also helps them identify any medical or procedural steps that may have legal implications, such as whether your embryos were created under a specific clinic’s protocols, or whether your egg donor arrangement requires a separate legal agreement.
Whether you have a surrogate in mind or an understanding of how to find one
One of the most common sources of confusion for intended parents entering their first legal consultation is the surrogate question. Finding a surrogate in Australia is not something a lawyer facilitates – it is something intended parents must do themselves, typically through personal networks, surrogacy support communities, or Surrogacy Australia. It is estimated that 19 out of 20, on one estimate, or 4 out of 5, on another estimate, surrogates were friends or family members with the intended parents. It is estimated by one surrogacy lawyer that the time to find your Australian surrogate (if you do not have one by that first appointment) will take between one month and four years.
If you have not yet begun thinking about how you will find a surrogate, it is worth doing so before your first legal consultation. Your lawyer can advise you on the legal requirements around the relationship with your surrogate, but they will assume you understand that finding one is your responsibility. Coming to the consultation with a clear picture of where you stand on this question, even if the answer is that you are at the very beginning, will help your lawyer give you relevant, practical guidance.
There are restrictions under State law about advertising for surrogates. It is best to obtain legal advice first. It is also an offence in most States in engaging in commercial egg donation overseas in some circumstances, and it can be an offence in most States to engage in commercial surrogacy. Obtaining accurate legal advice first is essential to avoid committing offences.
A realistic sense of costs and your budget
Surrogacy in Australia, whether domestic or international, involves significant financial commitment. Legal fees are one component. Medical costs, surrogate expenses, counselling, and agency fees (for international arrangements) are others. Before your first legal consultation, it is worth developing a basic understanding of the cost landscape so that you can have an informed conversation about what you can realistically pursue.
Your lawyer will not make financial decisions for you, but they will need to understand the parameters of your situation in order to advise you appropriately on which pathways are viable and what protections you should build into your arrangements.
An experienced surrogacy lawyer will be able to give you a ballpark figure for the costs of your domestic or international surrogacy journey, so that you have a realistic budget. Of course, everyone’s journey is unique to them. Costs can vary greatly.
A written list of your specific questions
This sounds obvious. In practice, most intended parents arrive at their first legal consultation without a structured list of questions, and leave having forgotten half of what they wanted to ask.
Write your questions down beforehand. Organise them by priority. If you are attending with a partner, agree on the questions in advance so that you are not working through different concerns simultaneously during the meeting. The questions do not need to be legally sophisticated – the consultation is precisely the place to ask questions you do not yet know the answers to. What matters is that you arrive knowing what you need to understand.
It is common for intended parents to forget most of the information they are told about during that first appointment, as there is so much information. It can be helpful to ask that a transcript be taken of the meeting, and that you are provided with a copy.
Where to build your foundational knowledge before the consultation
The resources available to intended parents have expanded considerably in recent years, and the quality varies widely. A few starting points worth considering:
- Stephen Page’s When Not If: Surrogacy for Australians provides a structured, legally grounded overview of the surrogacy landscape in Australia, written specifically for intended parents.
- The Australian Government’s surrogacy information offers an accessible overview of the regulatory framework across states and territories.
- Surrogacy support organisations such as Surrogacy Australia provide community-based resources and peer support.
- Online education platforms such as Family By Choice, where experts including surrogacy lawyer Stephen Page contribute as speakers, offer structured courses covering the legal, medical, ethical, and practical dimensions of the surrogacy journey, accessible at your own pace and timeline.
- Facebook groups and online communities can offer valuable peer perspectives, though the quality and accuracy of information shared varies considerably depending on the group and the jurisdiction being discussed.
None of these resources replaces legal advice. What they provide is the foundation from which legal advice becomes genuinely useful, a framework for understanding the questions your lawyer will ask, the options they will outline, and the decisions you will need to make.
The consultation itself
A first consultation with a surrogacy lawyer is not a commitment. It is a conversation, an opportunity to understand the legal landscape as it applies to your specific circumstances, to identify the steps ahead, and to assess whether this lawyer and this firm are the right fit for your journey.
Intended parents who arrive prepared use that conversation well. They leave with a clear picture of the legal pathway ahead, a realistic understanding of what will be required of them, and a set of next steps they can act on.
Those who arrive underprepared often leave needing a second consultation simply to get to the same starting point. That is not a failure of the lawyer. It is a function of arriving without the foundation in place.
Building that foundation is not complicated. It requires time, the right resources, and a willingness to engage with the complexity of the process before you sit down with the person whose job it is to guide you through it legally.
That investment, made before the first consultation rather than after, is one of the most useful things an intended parent can do.
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Olga Pysana is Co-founder of Family By Choice, an online education and support platform helping intended parents navigate fertility treatment, egg donation, and surrogacy with expert guidance at every stage, and founder of The Surrogacy Insider.
